Category Archives: Theatre

Playwright Tom Stoppard has been announced as the winner of the 2013 PEN/Pinter prize, celebrating a lifetime of literary achievement and his campaigning work in the field of human rights.

Founded in 2009 by the freedom-of-expression writers’ group English PEN in Pinter’s memory, the prize is awarded annually to a British writer or writer resident in Britain who, in the words of Pinter’s Nobel literature prize speech in 2005, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze upon the world and shows a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies.”

An artist is kept alone somewhere, dreaming of coffins and parking lots, a cat and even a prince. The electricity generated by such thoughts crackles and pulses in the maps of his mind. Then one day, he wakes up in an electrical substation. He decides to make it his home, and to invite others to share in his dreams. Do you remember this story?

This performance interrogates the role of artists in society, and presents a meditative homage to the founder of The Substation, the late Kuo Pao Kun, a decade after his passing. BluePrince is presented by The Substation and The Blue Statesmen, an independent collective of theatre artists comprising Bryan Tan, Robin Loon and Casey Lim, and is performed by Oliver Chong. Written by Robin Loon, and conceived and directed by Bryan Tan.

I’ll be watching BluePrince next week, a short performance that pays homage to the late great Kuo Pao Kun. It’ll be staged on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (27-29 September) and I believe that tickets are still available. [via The Substation]

First day back at school! It went reasonably well, all things considered. Anyway, let’s get some Shakespeare in here. Here is a bit of Cymbeline at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival this year. (It’s still running!) [via YouTube]